5° 



THE GRAPES OF NEW YORK. 



The first grape to become generally distributed as a commercial 

 variety, was, as has been remarked before, the Alexander, or Cape. It came 

 into prominence, through the deception of Legaux and the credulity of 

 Dufour, as one of the Vintferas commonly grown at the Cape of Good Hope. 

 It proved, however, to be an offshoot of the fox grape of the woods, Vitis 

 labrusca, and had been grown, long before Legaux palmed it off as the 

 Cape, under the names Alexander and Tasker's, Alexander because of its 

 having been grown by a gardener of this name and Tasker's through its 

 cultivation on a somewhat extensive scale by a Mr. Tasker in Maryland. 

 Its history dates back to the years before the Revolutionary War and its 

 origin was probably on the banks of the Schuylkill in Pennsylvania, hence 

 another of its many synonyms, Schuylkill Muscadell. 



Of the several other native varieties of the Labrusca type cultivated in 

 1830, two deserve attention for their intrinsic and historical value. The 

 Catawba, of uncertain origin, as we shall see in its history, and the Isabella, 

 a native of South Carolina, are both classed by most viticulturists as of the 

 fox or Labrusca type. The two varieties were distributed among vine- 

 growers at about the same time but the Catawba, because of its superior 

 merits, soon took the lead and at the time of which we write was by far 

 the most popular native grape. These, with the Alexander, may certainly 

 be considered the forerunners of the cultivated grapes of the species to 

 which they belong. The Catawba is still in several great grape regions 

 of the country the standard commercial variety. 



While varieties of Vitis labrusca were first cultivated in the North, it is 

 probable that Vitis rotundifolia furnished the first domesticated varieties 

 for the South, and likely, too, before the northern kinds were cultivated. 

 Among these are the white and black Scuppemongs, or bullet grapes. 

 Vitis rotundifolia, while it refuses to grow out of its liabitat, runs riot from 

 Maryland to Florida from seasliore to mountains and in many diverse soils. 

 The Scuppemongs' are natural ofi'shoots of this species and are kno\\Ti in 



' Tradition relates that the first Scuppemong vine known by civilized man was found on the 

 coast of North Carolina by Amadas and Barlowe in 15S4 and was transplanted by them to Roanoke 

 Island. An old vine of great diameter of stem and spread of vine, gnarled in trunk and branch, 

 evidently of great age, is known as the " Mother Scuppemong " and is supposed to be the vine trans- 

 planted in 1 5 84. 



